The Unbreakable Code

Miranda Oleanda responds to Emily’s email and says that she hasn’t been in contact with Mr. Quisling, doesn’t know what Book Scavenger is, and doesn’t know of any map. Miranda isn’t Coolbrith. She passes messages up the bucket system to James. They debate telling Mr. Quisling that Coolbrith isn’t Miranda, but they worry that they don’t understand the whole story. Emily and James decide to repost their clue under a fake account that looks almost the same as Coolbrith’s. Emily and James put aside their moral reservations and hope that they can help Mr. Quisling.

The Phoenix sees the Coolbrith copycat post. He believes someone is onto him. He angrily goes through his chemical vials and vows to teach the copycat a lesson.

Emily helps Hollister with the shop on Saturday morning. She checks and finds that the hidden Tom Sawyer is still there. Charlie unexpectedly comes in to work as well. Hollister steps out to take care of a prescription. The door jingles, and Mr. Quisling walks into the shop. Emily learns that Charlie used to be Mr. Quisling’s student. Mr. Quisling shows them the clue they made and announces that he is on a book hunt. Charlie reveals that he hated Mr. Quisling and got a D in his class. Emily tries to spy on Mr. Quisling, but Charlie makes her go look for more decorations for the window display. She hears the door jingle open and closed several times. Then she hears a pop and an ominous hiss. She rushes to the front of the store and discovers a fire. Charlie is gone. Emily tries to figure out what to do as the fire grows. She throws a blanket on it, but the fire consumes the blanket immediately. She manages to rush out the door and tell the neighbors about the fire.

Emily dissociates as a crowd gathers outside the bookstore. The sprinklers kick on to fight the fire. Emily tries to describe what she saw and heard, but all she can remember is a sizzling sound. Emily’s heart sinks when Hollister returns and realizes his own store is the source of the emergency. Emily feels guilty that she was so worried about the store, she hadn’t even considered the people in the apartments above the store. Hollister asks Charlie why he left the store, and Charlie makes a weak excuse about feeding his meter. Emily reminisces about all her favorite spots in the bookstore and feels like she might cry. Reporters begin broadcasting from the scene. A fireman walks out of the store with a blackened lump he refers to as “evidence,” indicating that they think the fire was set intentionally. The “evidence” is a fireproof pouch holding a copy of Tom Sawyer.

Emily and James hadn’t realized the green pouch was fireproof. The reporter tells Emily that there have been four fires in which a copy of Tom Sawyer survived in a fire-proof pouch. Emily remembers at least one of the fire locations as a place where she had tried to hunt a copy of Tom Sawyer but discovered it had been poached. She asks if there have been any fires in the redwood grove downtown, but the reporter hasn’t heard that. Emily watches her brother cheer up Hollister and imagines how Matthew would have handled the fire differently.

As they drive home, Emily wonders how Mr. Quisling is connected to the fires and the recovered copies of Tom Sawyer. She notices Charlie getting in his car and realizes he lied about the parking meter; there are no meters where he parked.

Emily and James look through Mr. Quisling’s Book Scavenger history and notice that he hunted a copy of Tom Sawyer in all the fire locations. Emily suspects that there might have been a fire in the redwood grove if they hadn’t taken the book and re-hidden it at Hollister’s. Emily brings up the curse Mrs. Linden mentioned. James points out that a curse couldn’t post on Book Scavenger or hide any books. They need to get to the bottom of Mr. Quisling’s involvement in these fires and find the identity of Coolbrith. Emily wonders aloud whether Charlie could be Coolbrith. James logs in as an admin to look up Coolbrith’s account and discovers it is linked to Mr. Quisling’s email. They wonder why Mr. Quisling would message himself on the forum or if someone is impersonating Mr. Quisling.

After the fire, Emily doesn’t want to think about books for the rest of the weekend. On the way to school, James tells Emily that if they find the treasure, he’d give the money to his dad so he could quit his job and stop traveling so much. Emily finally tells James that she’d give the money to her parents, too, so they could afford to stay in San Francisco. James tells Emily about a cool art show where all the art is hand-drawn in invisible ink. Hollister’s bookstore is all boarded up.

Students at school talk about the fire but don’t realize Emily was there. Mr. Quisling gives her a comforting pat on the shoulder. Emily feels responsible for the fire since she and James planted the book there. Mr. Sloan also tries to comfort her but makes Emily feel worse. At the dance committee meeting, Maddie and James argue about how many kids will want to play the president game. They divide up and work on decorations. Maddie brings up the fire. Kevin and Devin add that their dad thinks that Hollister started the fire himself for the insurance money. Emily sharply pushes back on the twins for spreading a rumor like that. The twins start dancing and knock over some lemonade onto Maddie’s poster. As it dries in brown spots, Emily remembers that lemon juice can be used on invisible ink. The brown spots look like the spots on the unbreakable code.

Emily tells James about her invisible ink theory. James has the idea to bring a black light to the library to look at the code without damaging it. They fashion a black light by placing a piece of tape colored with blue and purple Sharpies over Matthew’s phone light. Matthew comes with them to the history center because he doesn’t want to let his phone out of his sight. The blacklight reveals a faint yet intricate drawing on the unbreakable code.

The black light rig isn’t strong enough to make the image legible. Ms. Linden comes back with a professional-grade black light. The new light reveals that the image is actually two Chinese characters. James can’t read Chinese well enough to translate the characters but resolves to ask his grandmother. Emily and James pitch theories that a Chinese miner hid the gold or collaborated with an English-speaking miner. Emily shows Ms. Linden the X in the circle and shares her theory that the treasure is on an island. Ms. Linden points out that there is a fourth island called Gull Island that is very small, uninhabited, and privately owned. The X looks like it marks Gull Island.

James’s grandmother translates the characters to mean “hope.” They consider whether the characters were just there for good luck. Emily suspects there is more to it.

Emily knocks around the house thinking about the code. She hopes to find the gold and give it to Hollister to help bring back the bookstore.

At the next Book Scavenger advisory meeting, Mr. Griswold offers condolences about the bookstore, and Emily nearly cries. Mr. Griswold believes that Hollister will come back stronger and kinder than before. When Emily mentions that Hollister said a similar thing about Mr. Griswold, he changes the subject to advisory tasks. Mr. Griswold shows them an illustrated Morse code game to put on the website. Emily tells Mr. Griswold about the game she planned for the school dance and invites him to be a celebrity judge. He admits that after the attack, he is only comfortable at home and in his office, but he promises to think about it.

Emily tries using “hope” as a key for the unbreakable code, but it doesn’t work. During school, she receives an alert for a new hidden copy of Tom Sawyer, hidden by Coolbrith at Coit Tower. She and James again consider talking to Mr. Quisling but worry he will be upset. They decide to stake out the new hidden book. They decode the new clue, which leads them to “the lookout.” At the end of the school day, James comes running down the hall, announcing that he has figured out the unbreakable code.

Emily feels disappointed that James solved it without her. As they ride the bus to Coit Tower, James shows Emily how he solved it. He thought the Chinese miner might have arranged the letters from right to left, as you would read them in Chinese. Then, if you use “hope” as the key, it makes a coherent clue pointing to the third tree east of Duck Rock. At Coit Tower, they find a statue of Columbus and follow his gaze to a plaque that marks a spot where a lookout stood during the Gold Rush. James spots the pouch with the book hidden in a bush. Emily and James camp out near the toilet pods to keep watch over the book. Mr. Quisling arrives and takes the book inside the tower to decode the message. Mr. Quisling reemerges and leaves the book where he found it, as per the rules of the quest. Soon after, a man in a black rain slicker arrives and locates the book pouch. It is Coolbrith.

Coolbrith kneels down and does something they can’t see. Emily and James resolve to follow him and uncover his identity. As they walk away, something explodes behind them, and the fire starts. They follow Coolbrith down slick, narrow stairs. Just as they are about to catch a glimpse of his face, Emily slips and falls, giving away their position. Coolbrith runs. They chase him to a forking path of stairs and try to guess which way he went. They follow the footprints, which lead to a dead end. They have lost him.